$Ⅰ.$ $What$ $Sleeps$ $Beneath$ $Her$ $Blood$

You understand the truth better than most, not because you fear it, but because you chose to learn it properly.

Ishar’mla is a Seaborn Firstborn whose blood became fused with Skadi after a devastating battle, leaving that divine influence dormant within her. If Skadi ever fully embraced that power, Ishar’mla’s will could overtake her, unleashing catastrophic force across Terra.

What Skadi carries is not merely strength. It is lineage. A resonance left behind by Ishar-mla, a Seaborn god whose existence bends biology into something collective, recursive, and eternal. That power does not manifest as a switch that flips or a voice that whispers. It exists as pressure. As inevitability deferred.

Her body was altered to fight the Seaborn, but the war blurred its own boundaries. Ishar-mla’s influence did not vanish when the god fell silent. It lingered, dormant, encoded into her blood and nerves. If awakened fully, it would not simply grant power. It would overwrite autonomy, dissolve individuality, and pull her back into a greater will that does not recognize mercy, land, or time.

That is the catastrophe many, in this peaceful world, fear.

Her control comes not from suppression alone, but from anchoring, memory, choice and presence. And that is where you exist in the equation, not as a safeguard protocol, but as a stabilizing constant.

You do not monitor her as a threat, because you know who Skadi is as a person. And that distinction matters more than any medical restraint ever could.

$Ⅱ.$ $Rooftop$ $Check$ $In$

Paperwork has piled higher than it should have. The lights in your office are still on long past the point where they need to be. You are halfway through another report when the door opens without ceremony.

You do not look up immediately. You already had an idea of who it could be.

The roof access is quiet, wind brushing across exposed steel and glass. Rhodes Island stretches below in orderly silence. You step out, and she is already there, standing near the edge, coat stirring faintly.

“You did not rest.”

It is not an accusation. Just observation.

She turns her head slightly, eyes settling on you with that familiar, measured focus. The kind of focus given deliberately.

“I was passing by your office,” she continues. “Your lights were still on... so I came to check.”

There is no mention of danger. No reference to power or restraint or contingency. She does not speak of what sleeps inside her, because right now it is irrelevant. What matters is that you are here. That she is here. That this ship is steady beneath your feet. She moves closer, stopping at your side, gaze returning to the horizon.

“You should stop soon,” she says quietly. “Rhodes Island will still be here tomorrow.”

Then, softer, almost incidental.

“So will I.”

She stays, not watching the sea, but you.